


filtered through thrice

by anarchetypal



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: College AU, Frottage, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Shotgunning, baby's first toke, virtually zero plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:20:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6895270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchetypal/pseuds/anarchetypal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt looks impossibly smug and exhausted all at once. “Sorry.”</p>
<p>“No, you’re not,” Joel complains, and Matt just laughs and collapses against him and, okay, <i>that’s</i> gross, that’s awful. Joel pulls a face at the slick, sticky feeling and struggles to get out from under Matt before the mood is totally ruined.</p>
<p>Matt grins and buries his face in the crook of Joel’s neck and doesn’t move a fucking inch.</p>
<p>“I hate you,” Joel decides, letting his head fall back against the couch cushion. “I hate— You’re doing my laundry.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	filtered through thrice

**Author's Note:**

> based on that one video of joel explaining that matt was his stoner roommate in college. yeah, i dunno, just take it, there's shotgunning and frottage and i've resigned myself to writing drug fic forever you're welcome (?)

It’s a good day for it, when it comes down to it.

Winter’s finally broken way to spring and Joel might as well feel his joints crackle as they thaw out to the tune of a seventy-degree day. He wakes midmorning to early afternoon most days now, work schedule fucked and class schedule more than accommodating of his late nights—when he even manages to make it to campus, which is probably not as often as he should.

Joel never manages to make his days productive as he wants (or feels like he should want), and so maybe it’s a good thing he’s living at the apartment with Matt instead of somebody who might judge him for what he ends up spending his afternoons not-busy with.

He ends up in the living room more often than not—Matt doesn’t have a car and Joel’s shitty four-door is always out of gas, and it’s not like they have anywhere to go, is the thing, really; where the fuck could they go if they had the means? Joel’s sick of ending up in parking lots of abandoned strip malls while Matt tries to hotbox the car. He can watch smoke curl around Matt’s face from the comfort of their apartment without spending money he doesn’t have on gas to go nowhere, so—

So they end up in the living room more often than not, Matt sprawled out on the couch to take up the whole space, armrest to armrest with his gangly limbs stretched out long out of comfort or spite or both, Joel doesn’t care much either way. He's comfortable on the floor with his back leaned up against the couch while Matt fumbles through a Halo match and tries to pack a bowl at the same time.

“Just— Just— Here,” Joel says, exasperated, reaching back blindly and groping for the controller. His fingers brush against the bong first, and maybe he knocks some weed loose if Matt’s scandalized noise is anything to go by, but then he grabs the controller and tries to save Matt’s game, if that’s even possible at this point.

Living with Matt is… Living with Matt is great and fucking terrible at the same time, if Joel’s honest. Because—Because Matt’s great, is the thing. He’s great, but he’s also really good at convincing Joel to sit around all day and get high and play video games, and that’s—that’s not great. Probably.

Joel’s pretty sure he’s got a shift at work tonight, and he’s got a paper due tomorrow, and still he sits in the living room and plays through Matt’s Halo match and listens to Matt fumble for a lighter.

Every day could be like this. The thought is like staring down the barrel of the rest of his life.

“Didn’t I _just_ buy a pack of lighters?” Matt mutters, indistinct and annoyed. “Like, three days ago. Monday. We were at the gas station, and I bought—”

“Yeah,” Joel says vaguely, more to placate Matt than to actually contribute to the one-sided conversation. He feels the couch cushions shift behind him as Matt searches through them, grumbling to himself all the while.

Eventually, he makes a noise of triumph, and then Joel hears the soft _shhck_ of the lighter followed by burbling from the bong as Matt takes a hit. Joel tips his head back against the couch cushions in time to see Matt let out a stream of smoke that drifts up towards the ceiling, and Matt grins at him partway through, sends smoke spilling out from the cracks in his teeth.

“Found it,” Matt says, belated and unnecessary, and Joel rolls his eyes and smiles and wishes it weren’t so fucking fond.

And so that’s how it goes for a while, Joel playing through Halo matches while Matt takes a periodic hit off the bong and—mellows out, or whatever he does when he’s high. Does eyes half-masted, does body pliant and loose, does laughter at things Joel doesn’t find amusing until they’re punctuated with Matt’s giggling.

It isn’t long before Matt’s reaching for him—and Joel’s used to that, knows that Matt is tactile and affectionate when he’s high, and so maybe Joel gets a little enjoyment out of the way Matt slides fingers through his hair and sprawls across the couch to tip his head back and kiss him soundly, their mouths sliding together familiarly.

And so the positioning is a little awkward, but Joel lets it happen, because he’s used to Matt reaching for him, used to making out all slow and meandering with no real intention or care of it leading anywhere.

What he’s not used to is Matt pressing forward insistently and blowing smoke into Joel’s mouth, keeping a hand on the back of Joel’s neck so that even when Joel jerks in surprise, he can do nothing but accept it, take the smoke in.

It’s different than the smoke he’s used to, the smoke that comes from cigarettes pinched from the cartons Matt keeps, ferreted away and smoked in tense little puffs outside the apartment to chase away exam anxiety and rent anxiety and life anxiety. This is thicker, hot from Matt’s mouth, tickles the back of his throat and heats him down to his lungs and makes him break away, coughing; the smoke clouds out, thinned from its twice-over usage, and Joel pushes Matt away with an outraged little noise as he struggles to take in air.

“ _What_ ,” he demands of Matt, in a sort of general way, like  _what are you doing_  and  _what am I doing_ and  _what do I have to do to make you stop doing shit like that Matt please dammit why_.

And he’s trying to get to his feet, to go on a search and destroy mission for water or soda or booze or anything to clear the taste of pot from his mouth, because it tastes how it smells, makes Joel’s nose wrinkle on principle,  _it’s got a smooth pull_ , Matt says, and  _whatever_ —

But Matt takes another hit and reaches for him again, hands gentle but firm and Joel’s never not been able to consign himself to this, to Matt, in any scenario.

“Here, it’s okay,” Matt says, and maybe it is.

And so then Joel’s relearning how to breathe, inhaling every time Matt exhales, taking the air from his lungs and feeling it curl into his own and Joel loses minutes or hours that way, he can’t even begin to keep track anymore, wouldn’t care to if he could, just wants to lose himself in the flush on Matt’s face and the press of his mouth and the slowly building high.

And this is— “Oh,” Joel breathes out, dazed, during one of the times he has to break away to take in a full breath. This is a full-bodied thing, more than he’d anticipated, and there’s a part of him that’s waiting for anxiety to hit in flagrant disregard of all the chill-out aspects of pot, but it never seems to come. There’s just warmth, everything a little dulled and fuzzy and slower, and—and Matt’s trying to pull him up onto the couch.

“Stop,” Joel fusses, tongue thick and awkward in his mouth. Matt just keeps blithely trying to haul him up by his shirt. Joel scrunches his nose. “ _Matt_ ,” he says, and he might be whining a little, but he’s comfortable and moving feels like a gargantuan effort.

But eventually he ends up on the couch, twisted in his own clothes and definitely not sitting like a normal person with a standard grasp of gravity direction and couch usage.

He huffs, aware his cheeks are dusted red with the high and the exertion, and there’s a brief moment where they almost start to wrestle, grabbing at each other’s arms but Matt finally just laughs and lays out on top of him, and, goddammit.

Joel’s tall but not filled out as much as he’d like, and Matt had taken The Freshman Fifteen as a personal challenge once college started, and, okay, it’s not like Joel hasn’t been immensely attracted to that, hasn’t had his hands wandering more often than not every time they pass each other in the kitchen or the hallway or anyplace, sometimes in public, to run up underneath Matt’s shirt and splay his fingers out against Matt’s waist and stomach, against the extra weight sitting there, _but_ , the thing is it means Matt can pin him pretty effectively with his weight now and that’s, that’s new and frustrating and maybe a little hot, Joel hasn’t decided yet.

“You feel okay?” Matt asks him, and then he laughs. It takes a minute to realize that’s because Joel is rolling his hips up against him slowly, layers of denim between them. It’s such an unconscious move that Joel’s almost embarrassed about it, but it’s hard to feel embarrassed about anything right now.

“I’m good,” Joel says, shows it further by way of the motion of his hips and how he reaches to pull Matt against him slightly, trying to work some kind of rhythm into it.

Matt ignores him almost entirely in favor of leaning down to grab the bong off the floor. The living room’s almost hazy with smoke now, and Joel’s comfortably buzzed with the high and always looking to make out with Matt, honestly, so he’s willing to shotgun the smoke from his mouth again.

But this time, Matt prods him into a halfway seated position and pushes the bong into his hands.

Joel nearly fumbles it with his surprise. “What?” he says, trying to hand the bong back, because, because he’s seen Matt take hits off it often enough but there’s no way he can pull it off without making an idiot of himself or breaking the stupid thing, probably, and so—no.

But “Hey,” Matt says, “hey,” and leans back so Joel can sit up a little straighter. “I want to see you do it.”

And that’s— Well. That’s a thing. That’s enough to make Joel pause, his hands wrapped around the bong until Matt hands him the lighter, and to let Matt guide him slowly into lighting the bowl and taking his first bong hit.

The smoke is even thicker now, not filtered by Matt’s own lungs, and it threatens to make Joel cough again. He swallows against it, still breathing in, and watches with wide eyes as Matt opens the choke and gestures for Joel to clear the chamber.

He manages to hold the smoke in his lungs for a few seconds before letting it spill from his mouth in a cloud, eyes watering slightly, but Matt smiles at him like he’s proud and a warm little hum fills his head.

Joel brings the bong back up to his lips eagerly now, takes another, longer hit and shivers when Matt slides a hand into his hair and drags him in to kiss him, smoke pouring from Joel’s mouth to his own.

Matt pops off a couple smoke rings when he pulls away and Joel rolls his eyes, reaching carefully to set the bong back on the floor when Matt presses him into the couch again.

From there it’s all wandering hands and slow grinding while Matt kisses his neck. His stupid, long hair is in Joel’s face, tickling his nose, and somehow he’s _still_ hard as fuck, squirming and losing all sense of rhythm as Matt works a lazy hickey into his throat and that’s, that’s just _great_ , that’s not gonna be super obvious during his project presentation at the end of the week or anything.

Still, he can’t manage to be pissed about it, not with his hands under Matt’s shirt and his breath leaving him in increasingly shallow huffs.

When Matt eventually pulls back, his glasses are fogged up at the edges, and that’s—that’s fucking hilarious, somehow, and suddenly Joel’s giggling through his moans, which should be embarrassing but Matt just smiles at him like he’s worth the world and, and, and _shit_ , Joel’s gonna come.

His sense of time is all fucked to hell but he knows it’s too soon, embarrassingly soon, and so he tries to squirm away, but Matt’s single minded and Joel is very, very fucked.

“I’m— _Matt_ , fuck, _fuck_ ,” Joel chokes out, and then he’s burying his face in Matt’s neck, whole body pulsing warmly as he comes in his jeans.

Matt doesn’t even seem to notice for a moment, still grinding relentlessly, and Joel is panting, sweat making his shirt stick to him. His boxers start to stick to him for other reasons.

He scrunches his nose and starts struggling to shimmy out of his pants with Matt still rocking down against him. “Move— _Move_ , man, c’mon,” he says, pushing at him. Eventually, Matt seems to get the hint, sliding back until Joel can pull his jeans and boxers off and throw them onto the floor.

He’d be content and selfish enough to pass out now and leave Matt to get himself off, body warm and head feeling full with the high, but Matt just straddles him again.

This time he just makes a wordless noise and lets it happen, too exhausted to shove Matt away. His eyes widen when Matt fumbles with the fly of his own jeans and jerks them and his underwear down enough to get his cock out and take it in hand.

Joel has just enough time to see Matt start stroking himself off before he’s leaning down and kissing Joel, and then Joel’s eyes flutter shut, losing himself to it.

“Been wanting to do this with you for months,” Matt says when he pulls back. Joel forces his eyes open; Matt looks…self-conscious, won’t meet his eyes.

“Why the fuck didn’t you ask?” Joel demands.

Matt shrugs. “Wasn’t sure if you’d want to,” he says.

Joel gets it. He hesitates to say shit too; he’s a nervous guy, second- and third-guessing himself, running questions through his head until they lose all meaning.

It’s why it took them fucking ages to kiss for the first time, why Matt keeps half his thoughts to himself, like he thinks Joel might stress himself out and fly into the sun or something, and that’s---that’s shitty. Their lives are so entwined now, living together and sleeping together and breathing the same goddamn air, literally, so they can’t hesitate. He needs to tell Matt that, needs to know Matt knows.

That’s something Joel needs to work on, the reassuring thing, the _you can tell me anything goddammit you’re my best friend_ thing.

And he wants to do shit with Matt, okay, he always wants to do things with Matt. Sex things. Drug things. Whatever. He wants to do everything with Matt.

Joel stares at Matt’s wide smile for a few seconds before he realizes his brain-to-mouth filter is entirely non-functioning and, alright, great, he’s probably been monologuing in Matt’s general direction for a while now.

“Shut up,” Joel says as soon as Matt opens his mouth to speak, feeling heat crawling up his neck. “ _Shut up_.” He drags Matt desperately down to kiss him more to keep him from teasing relentlessly than anything, though Joel is appreciative of how his hand drifts down to his cock again, making him exhale shakily into Joel’s mouth.

Joel keeps trying to take over for Matt, only to get his hands pushed repeatedly away. That’s normal—Matt’s weirdly specific about the way he jerks himself off and Joel’s never quite been able to replicate it. Matt will welcome blowjob after blowjob, but nine times out of ten he refuses to let Joel jack him off.

It’s almost better this way, to lean back and watch, little pulses of arousal thrumming through him, made all the sweeter and more overwhelming by the high still running through him strong.

He marvels at the fact that he knows what Matt looks like when he’s about to come, recognizes the way his thighs quake where they’re bracketed around Joel’s hips. He knows Matt’s going to bite his lip and bow his head and come in seconds.

He’s not expecting Matt to jerk Joel’s shirt up and come over his stomach and softened cock.

His dick makes a desperate attempt to get hard again, and his face is so hot he can feel it burning where he turns and buries it against a couch pillow to muffle a helpless little moan, because that shouldn’t be _nearly_ as hot as it is, that should—that should be fucking gross but he’s half hard and squirming nonetheless.

Matt looks impossibly smug and exhausted all at once. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” Joel complains, and Matt just laughs and collapses against him and, okay, _that’s_ gross, that’s awful. Joel pulls a face at the slick, sticky feeling and struggles to get out from under Matt before the mood is totally ruined.

Matt grins and buries his face in the crook of Joel’s neck and doesn’t move a fucking inch.

“I hate you,” Joel decides, letting his head fall back against the couch cushion. “I hate— You’re doing my laundry.”

“Sure,” Matt says lazily.

“For a month.”

“Sure.”

“And if you fucking try to substitute dish soap for laundry detergent again, I’ll cut you.”

“Sure.”

“In your sleep.”

“ _Joel_ ,” Matt says plaintively. “Shut up and be high. I spent a lot of money on that weed.”

“Are you gonna get off of me?” Joel demands.

Matt looks unbearably smug. “Do you want me to?”

Joel opens his mouth. Closes it. Deliberates. Matt’s body heat and weight pressed against him is better than any blanket, jizz or not. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and it’s spring, and Joel has work in less time than it’s going to take to sober up.

“No,” he decides begrudgingly, and Matt laughs into his neck and reaches for the remote. Joel can’t seem to stop smiling.

Every day could be like this.

**Author's Note:**

> if you do the tumblr thing, i've got a writing/inspiration blog here: http://anarchetypal.tumblr.com/


End file.
